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Woman jumps from second floor window to flee fire

By:

Ted Lutz

Staff Writer

Monday, February 18, 2019

A 25-year-old woman fled a Kane smoky house fire Monday by climbing out a second-floor window and jumping.
“I really don’t like heights,” Kayla Snyder said in recalling her harrowing escape. “But they told me I had to come out the window. They told me to jump.”
Kane Borough Police Officer Derrick Snyder, also a volunteer Kane fireman, arrived at the smoke-filled house at 407 Chase St. shortly after 7:35 a.m. Monday. Kayla Snyder and Police Officer Derrick Snyder are not related.
He and William Roe of 11 Easton St. stood below the second-floor bedroom window and broke the fall of the woman.
Kayla said she followed police advice, climbed out the window and “dangled” from the window sill.
As Officer Snyder and Good Samaritan Roe stood together on the snow-covered ground and reached up for her lower legs, she reluctantly let go.
“There was a moment of panic,” the woman admitted. “I have a fear when my feet are leaving the ground.”
Kayla then sat in the warm Kane police car before Emergycare ambulance of Kane transported her to the UPMC-Kane for an examination. She said she was not seriously injured.
The Kane Volunteer Fire Department responded with most of its equipment and 25 volunteer firemen, Fire Chief Tim Holt said.
Mt. Jewett and Wilcox firemen also responded with equipment and personnel, Holt said.
Firemen hooked up a five and a half-inch hose at a hydrant at Chase and Haines streets. Holt said the two-story house was filled with smoke, but he “never saw flames.”
There is substantial smoke and water damage, the chief said. He did not list a damage estimate.
A State Police fire marshal determined that a faulty electrical connection on the first floor caused the smoky fire.
Kayla said equipment for aquariums were plugged into an electrical outlet near the source of the fire.
A pellet stove on the first floor “wasn’t a factor” in the fire, the chief said.
After using fans to ventilate the house, firemen returned to the fire hall on Poplar Street about 9:30 a.m. Monday, the chief said.
Holt said the fire started near the base of the stairway to the second floor. Because of this location, smoke flowed upwards to the second floor and came out the second-floor windows, the chief said.
Arriving firemen saw this smoke coming from the windows and first thought the fire started on the second floor, the chief said.
Kayla said she was sleeping in a second-floor bedroom when one of her two chihuahuas woke her up by “whining.”
“I smelled smoke, but thought it was coming from our pellet stove,” she said. “We always smell smoke from that stove so I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

For full article, check the Feb. 19, 2019 printed or e-edition of The Kane Republican